The Year of the Rappy
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Phantasy Star Online. On the eve of AUW 3085, the murder of one of the Lab's experts in Rappy studies leads to conspiracy and secrets, and drawing Donovan Ryland and Lyon together for the first time as they seek to find promise for the future.
1. Chapter 1

**AUW 3084: December**

_A/N: Just for reference, if anyone has read "Heartwired," this story is chronologically the first in the Lyon & Ryland Holiday Stories series and so comes before that one._

~X X X~

The first thing he could think of--indeed, for some time, the only thing he could think of--was the throbbing ache in his head. It _pulsed_, like an automated sign, swelling to white-hot agony and then fading to be merely painful in regular patterns as with the flow of blood to his skull.

_That must have been some party,_ he thought dimly. _Or did I just fall down and hit my head?_

He _thought_ he could remember drinking, talking, the clink of glasses. _Some_ kind of social event. But he'd left, hadn't he? He'd gone to his aerocar and headed...where? Home? It should be home, shouldn't it?

As the pain in his skull slowly ebbed, or perhaps as he simply became more accustomed to it, he became aware of other pains, not serious ones, minor aches that had gotten lost in the greater hurt. His shoulders, his hip...he was laying on his side, not on a comfortable mattress but on some kind of hard surface. Something was jabbing into his back, too.

_I didn't even make it back to bed?_

There was nothing for it but to try--_try_--to get up. _Eyes first, now: let's see what I've gotten myself into._

Slowly, slowly now, he pried his eyes open. At first he didn't understand what he was looking at, pools of darkness and unexpected color. Then his brain began to function, make associations that bubbled up from still-cloudy memory. Darkness because the lights were out. Amber because of the emergency lighting that glowed from the seams between walls and ceiling. Red because what screens were still working--many were inert--were glowing brightly in alarm mode. Interior furnishings had been blown apart by some tremendous force, but he still recognized the room as a laboratory chamber.

_Laboratory? What happened?_

Then he recognized something else, a blob of white near the corner of his vision. He turned his head slightly to get a better look, then had to fight off a fresh wave of pain and nausea caused by the motion. He breathed deeply, tasting dust and smoke.

Somewhere he heard the hiss of a sliding door opening, the tramp of booted feet on the floor.

"What the heck?"

"Good grief, what _happened_?"

"There's people in here! Get a medical team!"

The babble of voices barely made an impression on him, because his vision had cleared enough for him to see what the white had been. A lab coat, badly stained by whatever had happened, and by splashes of red not caused by the glow from the screens. The body of a man lay on his back, propped up by the remains of a bench, and his slack jaw and wide, staring eyes were mute evidence that a medical team would be far, far too late.

~X X X~

"This should be an extremely simple job for a hunter of your capabilities."

_If it's so simple, then why did I have to come all the way down to the Lab for the details?_ wondered an annoyed Android Weinstine Co. Type L/Y-906 (Lyon to her friends). She was aware from previous experience as well as scuttlebutt among her fellow hunters, though, that it was simply Lab policy. They posted a quest listing with the Hunter's Guild, and if a hunter took the job then they reported to the Lab for the assignment. This wasn't the case for individual scientists, but Lab chief Natasha Milarose apparently had too many important things to do for her to report to the Guild for a briefing.

In fact, she apparently had so many important things to do that she wasn't even available to brief a hunter in the Lab, having left the job to her assistant, Dan.

"I'm glad that you have such confidence in me," Lyon remarked.

"Yes, um..." Dan muttered, caught off-guard at having to deviate from his prepared script. Clearly he had no idea what Lyon's qualifications were or weren't, beyond the fact that she met the minimum prerequisites the Lab had posted with the job listing.

Dan tugged at the brim of his cap, the motion almost making it seem like he was hitting some reset toggle for his brain.

"Are you familiar with Dr. Evo Carstairs?" he asked.

"I didn't know him personally, but I saw the news that he'd been killed last week. InfoNet reported that he was murdered by a rival scientist."

Lyon estimated that her reference to one Lab employee murdering another would have a 77% chance of flustering Dan, and the bureaucrat did not hit the short odds.

"That's as may be--an unfortunate, purely personal matter. But yes, that is the man I mean. We need you to do a job in connection with his research."

Lyon wasn't entirely sure she liked that.

"Does this relate to his murder?"

"Of course not!" Dan snapped. "This will be a simple retrieval job, nothing more. Equipment salvage from Dr. Carstairs's fieldwork."

Lyon nodded, which made the ponytail-like structure of her "hair" bob up and down.

"Dr. Carstairs was involved in researching the behavior of certain of Ragol's native creatures when he died. To do this, he had a number of monitor beacons set up throughout the creatures' range. His death has derailed the project, and we would like for you to retrieve the beacons from the surface."

"How big are the beacons?"

"Here are the details."

Dan pressed several keys on his console and one of the holographic screens behind him shifted to display a roughly cylindrical object while a stream of text along the side gave the specifications. The beacons were about two feet long and six inches broad, easily manageable and, Lyon noted, fairly resistant to shocks, water, and other hazards. Dan was right; it did seem routine.

"Dr. Carstairs had eleven of them in total. We need you to bring back whatever you can from Residential Section 03. Beacons aren't cheap."

"I like scavenger hunts," Lyon remarked. "I'm surprised, though, that given that the project is already underway you haven't appointed someone else to just take over."

Dan pursed his lips primly.

"The decision is an internal Lab matter based upon the allocation of resources." Then, as if realizing how absurdly ridiculous he sounded, he smiled without humor and admitted, "The truth is, no one else cared. There was only one other scientist in the Lab who shared Dr. Carstairs's field of interest."

"Was that one busy with another, more important project?"

"In a manner of speaking. He was under arrest for the murder of Dr. Carstairs."

Irony. There appeared to be more to Dan than was visible at first. Lyon supposed there almost had to be, but it was a lesson nonetheless. She flagged the observation in her memory as a reminder of the risks of jumping to conclusions.

It didn't take much longer to conclude the briefing, just her formal acceptance of the job and verification of the bounty: two hundred meseta per beacon, which was good pay for a job confined to the former residential perimeter of Ragol. Within ten minutes Lyon was seated in an omnibus, soaring through the city's air traffic channels along with another seventeen of her fellow residents. She glanced out the window, noting the prevalence of the red-and-gold color scheme of New Year's decorations.

"Gonna be a big bash," said the man next to her. "A party all through the city. Gotta see the year in right!"

Lyon wasn't sure there was that much to celebrate. The dawn of AUW 3085 was supposed to have been the first New Year's on the planet Ragol for the residents of _Pioneer 2_. Instead, when they'd arrived they'd found that the thirty thousand initial colonists of _Pioneer 1_ had vanished without a trace, the native animals turned hyper-aggressive, mutated monsters prowling the underground, secret excavations carried out whose robots had been turned into killing machines, and a buried ruin inhabited by creatures that seemed almost literally demonic. The different government factions on _Pioneer 2_ spent more of their time fighting each other than solving problems, and the only thing they could seem to agree on was that it was not time for colonization. 3084 was about to end with _Pioneer 2_ still in orbit, tens of thousands of citizens still stuck in the city in a bottle that had been their home during the two-year journey.

_Maybe that's why we_ do _need a party,_ Lyon thought. It wasn't to celebrate happiness, but to create some.

"The Year of the Rooster," the man went on. "Hey, do you know what that means?"

Lyon shook her head; her database did not include the origins of the New Year's naming customs. She flagged the absence to look up later, the equivalent of what organics called making a mental note, only her mental notes were actual ones and much more reliable than an organic's. Her mind was set up to mimic the kind of decision-making architecture that drove a human or Newman's brain, including a healthy respect for her emotions as well as the biological and sociocultural differences that defined her brain as female, but it was still a computer AI built from Photon technology.

"Me either. Of course, it's not like anybody's seen a rooster since we left Coral and the things are endangered even there. Neomeat synthetics take a heck of a lot less resources to produce than real animal meat, that's for certain."

"Look at it this way: you've gone your whole life eating neomeat, so real chicken would probably taste strange and unpleasant to you," Lyon suggested. The man grinned in reply.

"Hey, not bad. Think I'll keep that in mind next time I get envious of some rich guy."

With that, the man folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his seat to rest. The encounter had lifted Lyon's spirits, though. Not everyone would just chat freely with an android. A fair number of people were uncomfortable with the idea of treating them _as_ people. It was an attitude she even sometimes found in Newmen, who although organic were still lab-grown from engineered DNA. It was nice to get the reverse of that. Who knew? Maybe there were new attitudes to go with the new year.

~X X X~

The woman was tall and dressed with an elegant but exaggerated formality, as if she was attending a state banquet or in a box at the opera. Her bright red hair, which would have been long and luxuriant, was pulled back and up in a heavy knot on the back of her head. Her lips and nails were painted the same brilliant magenta. She could have been many things--a businesswoman, a socialite, a celebrity, an artist, a politician. No one, however, would have guessed "scientist" just by looking at her, and in truth she was not one, not directly.

Yet Natasha Milarose was in direct command of the greatest collection of scientific expertise on _Pioneer 2_. She was the chief of the Lab. Technically the Lab was under the jurisdiction of the civilian government, the Administration, and was supposed to serve as the balance against the military and corporate laboratories. Natasha, though, had turned it into a nearly independent player, a third corner in the power struggle over control of the colony ship and the Pioneer Project.

Dan didn't know her ultimate objectives, her relationship with notables such as Principal Tyrell, Leo Grahart of 32nd WORKS, Dr. Osto Hyle on _Pioneer 1_, or the governments back on their homeworld, Coral. He didn't consider that he needed to know. It wasn't his place.

"It's done," he reported. "The hunter took the job."

"Good."

He did want to know the point of his own actions.

"Ma'am...why are we doing this?"

Chief Milarose smiled.

"Dan, have you _seen_ our equipment budget? Data monitors aren't cheap, you know. The cost of retrieval is considerably less than the cost of replacement."

"That's not what I mean, ma'am. Surely there's more to it than just that."

Natasha smiled enigmatically.

"Well, perhaps that isn't _quite_ all."

"Then what else is there?"

"Watch and see, Dan. Watch and see."


	2. Chapter 2

"You...you're certain that you're a hunter from the Guild?" Edwin Scolos asked hesitantly.

The client was a young man, not even twenty-five, with a shock of tousled brown hair, wearing a blue tunic and white pants. He looked like a graduate student skipping out on academy classes, not an employee of the government. Then again, most of _Pioneer 2_'s lab assistants had that look from Simons Olo on down, probably because there was a distinct similarity between most senior scientists and an academy professor.

This one looked over Donovan Ryland very carefully. Ryland was a Force, trained in the psionic manipulation of Photon energy via what were called techniques, and like most human Forces he wore formal robes not unlike those of a medieval wizard. Ryland's robes were green and white, the color complementing his long red hair, which he wore back in a queue. Rather than undergo surgery or wear in-eye lenses, Ryland corrected his poor vision with square-rimmed spectacles.

"Quite sure," Ryland replied dryly. "I admit, I looked in the mirror this morning and had my doubts, but then I checked my Guild ID and all seemed in order."

Scolos flushed.

"There's no need to be insulting. I was just expecting a hunter to be--" He trailed off without finishing, but Ryland knew what he meant. Scolos expected a hired hunter to be a brawny action-hero type, or perhaps a scantily clad female Newman, or a sleek, lethal combat android.

"I know. The Forces you're familiar with probably work in the next research cubicle." A lot of scientists and engineers working with Photon technology had Force training to help them better master the intricacies of the energy source that had revolutionized everything in society, making the unimaginable possible. "Nonetheless , I--and many like myself--do put our training as a Force to a practical application in the field. I assure you, I have been fully cleared by the Guild for operations on Ragol's surface, or else I would not have been permitted to accept your quest listing."

"I see. Well, I'm glad to know that," the younger man said a bit huffily, clearly trying to regain control of the conversation. "There will be a need to go down to Ragol's surface for this job." He half-turned away from Ryland to look out the Guild meeting room's window, where they could see the broad curve of the planet drifting beneath. Ryland wondered what stories he'd heard about Ragol and how close to the truth they were.

"Are you familiar with Dr. Evo Carstairs?" Scolos asked.

Ryland shook his head.

"I can't say that I know the name."

"Dr. Carstairs was one of the Lab's biologists, assigned to the Pioneer Project to help study the environmental conditions existing on Ragol. I was his assistant."

Ryland noted the use of the word "was" twice in the explanation and asked, "What happened to him?"

"He was murdered! Killed by a jealous colleague right here on _Pioneer 2_"

"But my job involves going down to Ragol. Is there some connection there?"

"No, not to that. Thankfully the killer was caught and is in custody. This job isn't about avenging Dr. Carstairs's death, but about preserving the value of his life and of his dreams. You see, when he died, he was involved in a major project, and I won't let that scum Dr. Guls get away with destroying it!"

"Dr. Guls? How does he fit into all this?"

Scolos's head snapped around.

"You know the name?"

"I'd say that most of the Guild does. There was a Guild Quest quite a while back where he'd been on Ragol, living disguised in a Rappy colony to study the creatures and his assistant hired a hunter to bring him back before he went completely native. As you might guess, the story made the rounds pretty fast. So yes, most hunters have at least heard of Dr. Guls, if only as the Rappy expert who almost decided to become one."

Scolos's face screwed up in sudden rage.

"The Rappy expert! Even among hunters that arrogant jackass has that reputation!" He slammed his fist against the wall just below the window.

"You're saying that he's not?"

"Dr. Carstairs was twice the scientist Dr. Guls is, and Dr. Guls knew it. Dr. Carstairs's monumental project on the life cycle of the Rappy and its interaction with the post-_Pioneer 1_ Ragolian ecosystem would have buried Dr. Guls's reputation as a Rappy expert forever. That's why that slime-dog murdered him!"

Ryland's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Wait. You're saying that Dr. Guls was the one who murdered Dr. Carstairs, and it was because of this project?"

Scolos nodded sharply.

"Pure professional jealousy! He just couldn't take it that he wouldn't be the leading authority on his beloved Rappies, so he killed Dr. Carstairs before the work could be finished. Of course he was caught and arrested, but he still managed to achieve his primary goal: to stop Dr. Carstairs's project before it could be completed. But I can't just let that happen! I won't let his name vanish into history without a fight!"

He sounded so earnest that Ryland wanted to laugh, but he didn't. He remembered when he himself had been that age and younger, when he'd been equally passionate about things that had caught his emotional interest. And all in all, a late mentor's memory wasn't such a bad thing to feel that kind of dedication towards.

"So how do I fit in?" he asked.

"As part of the project, Dr. Carstairs was gathering data concerning the Rappies from the residential area near the Central Dome on Ragol. I want to retrieve that data so that the analytical work can continue, either by me or in the hands of another scientist. Then Dr. Carstairs's dream of greater understanding of the Rappy can be fulfilled at last!"

"Why do you need a hunter for that?" Ryland asked curiously. "I'm glad to help, but shouldn't it be possible to download the data from the Lab?"

His client scowled.

"Oh, Dr. Guls thought of that already," Scolos said bitterly. "All of Dr. Carstairs's access codes and data contacts were deleted from the Lab mainframe, then the physical equipment destroyed in the explosion so there was no chance of retrieving any ghosts of past transactions."

_Explosion?_ Ryland thought.

"I see. So the information is there on Ragol, but all the knowledge of how to access it is gone. Sort of like if I wanted to send someone a simple-mail message but didn't know their address?"

"Yes, exactly. Dr. Carstairs set up a monitoring station on the surface to collect and collate the data for later retrieval. I'm sure Dr. Guls didn't have a chance to get down to the surface and destroy it."

"He could have hired a hunter," Ryland pointed out.

"Blast it! He'd do that, too; I'm sure of it! But he might not have had an opportunity. He was caught in the act of the murder, and if he wasn't going to deal with the data on the surface until later, then it should be intact. A man can't hire hunters from a holding cell."

"Not usually," Ryland agreed.

"So!" Scolos exclaimed as if he'd just made a telling point, and perhaps he had. "There's still a good chance that Dr. Carstairs's data is still in the monitoring station! What I need is for you to go there, remove the data module, and bring it back to me."

Ryland arched an eyebrow at Scolos.

"Remove the data module? You mean, physically? Why not just download the data?"

Scolos flushed again.

"I...don't have Dr. Carstairs's access codes," he admitted. "If you bring the data module back, though, I can have our Lab technicians crack the security and extract the data. Unless...you don't happen to be a hacker, do you?"

Ryland shook his head.

"I'm afraid not. I guess we'll go with your plan, then."

He was used to Lab missions where the client provided programs to crack any relevant security, but those were fully funded jobs on behalf of the Powers That Be, not the private plans of a lowly assistant. He wasn't going to be getting a lot by way of technical support or backup.

"Good. Now, the experiment was running in Residential Section 03 on the surface, so that's where the monitoring station will be located."

Ryland nodded.

"Which block?"

Scolos glanced down, not meeting the Force's gaze.

"You don't _know_?"

"I wasn't involved with the on-site installation, so I don't know personally, and all Dr. Carstairs's data was wiped, so--"

"So you can't look it up." Ryland nodded. "You're sure it's in Residential Three, though, right?"

Scolos nodded.

"That's a manageable limit," Ryland decided. "A monitoring station with a surface-to-orbit transmitter can't hide under a rock, so I'll just have to search the whole section until I find it."

"I'm glad you think it's a manageable job."

"I suppose that only leaves the question of the fee."

"But...I thought I'd provided that with the job listing," Scolos stammered. "I'm doing this on my own; I can't _afford_ more than 1200 meseta."

Ryland shook his head.

"I'm not trying to negotiate the amount; that's fair for the request as it stands. I just want to establish the conditions."

His client still looked confused.

"To bring back the data, of course. That's what I'm hiring you for."

Ryland shook his head.

"That's just it. I can bring you back the data module, but I can't guarantee the data, especially since it's secured."

"Oh...oh, I see. Then let's say the fee is contingent on you bringing back the data module intact. If it's physically destroyed then I can't do anything with it."

"Fair enough. You take the risk that the gathered data is useless and I take the risk that a Hildebear has come along and stomped the monitoring station flat."

"So you'll take the job?"

"Yes; I'll start today. Give me your contact information and I'll get in touch when the job's done."

"All right, my PDL code is--no, wait, I'll give you my simple-mail address. That's more secure. Good luck, Mr. Ryland."


	3. Chapter 3

Lyon stepped off the warp platform into the cool air of a sunny forest clearing. It was more than a little eerie, she thought. The Residential Area had been the site of _Pioneer 1_'s civilian settlement, but other than the now-devastated Central Dome and the occasional remnant such as security gates or mushroom-like Photon collectors, all signs of sentient habitation were gone. It wasn't even as if they had been destroyed by violence, leaving wreckage and scarred earth, but like thirty thousand people, together with homes, shops, storage facilities, and so on had been somehow _erased_.

Fairly reliable reports suggested that a massive explosion had been detected on the surface as _Pioneer 2_ had been trying to open communications with the settlement, but beyond that, nothing was known. The answers remained hidden.

What wasn't a mystery was that the native animals of the forest--at least the large, predatory ones--had been turned hyper-aggressive, attacking any person they saw and fighting relentlessly to the death. Accomplishing anything on the surface demanded combat. Lyon immediately drew a short baton and activated the Photon driver; a three-foot blue Photon blade sprouted from either end of the Twin Brand. The principle was the same as a simple quarterstaff, but the Photon blades made it quite capable of tearing through the latest high-tech armor, or the most vicious alien creatures.

As a RAcaseal, Lyon was actually optimized for long-range combat using guns. The combat programming built into her AI system architecture as well as the physical structure of her body were designed for it. Being a free-willed, independent android, however, she wasn't bound by a pre-set role. She preferred, emotionally, close-quarters combat and though not optimized for it the way a Hunter model was, she was quite competent.

Residential Section 03 was a fairly large area, she soon realized as she passed through a security gate that kept the native hazards away from the teleporter. The monitors were relatively small, and Lyon suspected that Dr. Carstairs would have hidden them as best he could among brush and undergrowth or in out-of-the-way corners to keep them from being detected. While her android's perception would keep her from missing them and her memory keep her from looking in the same place more than once, it would be a time-consuming process to find all eleven by just making a meticulous search of the ground.

On the other hand, the schematic Dan had showed her suggested that the data monitors did not have long-range transmitters. They were not capable of uploading the information they gathered to the BEE network and communicating it back to _Pioneer 2_. Instead, there would be somewhere on the surface, some terminal that either had long-range capability or from which the data could be directly retrieved. If she could find that, she could use it to display the location of the data monitors and give her an exact guide for retrieving them. Plus, by its very nature the central terminal would be easier to see than one of the monitors and not so well camouflaged.

Her course of action decided, Lyon set out with renewed purpose. She stepped through the undergrowth, scattering leaves, and onto a kind of packed dirt path, not so much a road as a trail used by wildlife. It curved to the north, and she followed it along a bubbling brook towards another security gate. That gate, though, was locked, as shown by the bright red lights topping it. Was there a nearby switch, or--

Four humanoid shapes seemed to explode from the ground around her, verifying the second alternative. Many gates were equipped with sensors that kept them sealed in the presence of hostile monsters to restrict them from access. While the creatures Lyon now faced were native animals, they were definitely both hostile and monstrous. Vaguely human-like in shape, they were covered in thick fur, had long, sharp claws for digging, and mouths full of razored fangs that almost completely bisected their two-foot-wide heads. The brown-furred ones were Boomas and the yellow ones with slightly pointed heads Goboomas.

Lyon had fought these creatures any number of times before on previous missions, so she knew how to deal with them. Being surrounded was a bad situation, so she acted fast to break the trap, stepping towards the nearest Booma and slashing out in a whistling arc. Her weapon gave her better reach than its claws, so she slashed down once, then swept the second blade up in a follow-up attack. The Booma reeled, and she followed up with a third hit in the sequence that cut it down. Quickly, Lyon rushed through the gap in the attacking ring.

The other creatures turned, following her relentlessly. They growled and snarled, taking no notice of their fallen packmate. That was the way of things on Ragol, the aggressive creatures attacking with relentless abandon, more like robots or soldier insects rather than mammals or reptiles.

Lyon was faster than they were, though, and once she had them in a cluster she rapidly circled the monsters, harrying and slashing at their flanks while not letting them get close enough to bite or claw. In very little time, the fight was over.

_No, not yet,_ she corrected. The gate remained sealed, which indicated that there was still something in the area. In the next moment the threat appeared, bursting up out of the shrubbery.

From a human perspective, most of Ragol's monsters deserved the term. The twenty-foot-tall horned Hildebears, the giant savage wolves, and the nightmarish Boomas could have sprung from the evil witch's den in any fairy tale. What advanced on Lyon now, though, was a definite exception. Rappies were large birds, around three feet high, that looked like someone had crossed a penguin with a marshmallow. While they could deliver a nasty peck, as more than one hunter had found out the hard way, they were amazingly cute.

Lyon's personality matrix did include an appreciation for cute things, but not when it was trying to drill a hole in her carapace with its beak. She slashed the Rappy across the chest and it keeled over and lay still. The lights on the sec-gate flashed to green and she strolled in its direction while keeping an eye on the Rappy. Sure enough, once she got a goodly distance away the Rappy sat up, glanced around, and scuttled for the underbrush, where it vanished into the hedge.

The next block was an egg-shaped clearing with a little nook at one end near the gate, surrounded by ten-foot-high stone walls. The nook was closed off by a laser fence, horizontal bars of energy strung between emitter poles, and on the other side was a large, cylindrical structure, almost looking like some kind of tank for liquid except that it was fitted with an access terminal on one side. Almost certainly it was the monitoring station she was looking for. The fence had likely been placed only to keep animals from damaging the equipment rather than security against humans, as the switch was right next to it and was a simple on/off toggle without any passcode or bioscan required. Lyon turned it off and stepped up to the machine.

The monitoring station appeared to be a general-purpose environmental analysis unit left over from _Pioneer 1_, Lyon observed. Apparently Dr. Carstairs had decided to simply use what was there rather than installing equipment of his own. Electronic security was in place, probably to keep out snoopy rivals--there was a fair amount of jealousy and backbiting among scientists--or possibly on the off chance that the project produced classified data.

_I wish Gowan was here,_ Lyon thought, referring to a fellow hunter, a male android who was also an enthusiastic net-dancer. Still, Lyon wasn't completely hopeless with circumnavigating security, and the attempt would likely be worth the time spent.

Before she could begin the sound of the block's security gate swishing open impacted on her audio sensors and she spun at once, reaching for her railgun. A man approached; he had red hair and spectacles and his elaborate robes marked him as a Force. Lyon wondered if he was a threat; hunters with competing mission objectives had been known to do battle with each other. In such a situation a Force's ability to rain down damage with techniques at long range could be lethal given a high enough skill level.

"Who are you?" she asked. "What is your purpose here?"

"I should ask you the same question, but since you asked first, I'm Donovan Ryland, a Force from the Hunter's Guild."

"Type L/Y-906, or more casually Lyon, also from the Guild. And your purpose?" she repeated.

"That machine." He nodded towards it, likely aware that a hand gesture might be interpreted as the start of a technique and trigger a conflict. "I was sent to retrieve data from it. Are we going to have problems over that?"

Lyon lowered her gun.

"I don't believe that our purposes conflict. Dr. Carstairs's research data, I assume you're after?"

Ryland nodded.

"That's right. My client wanted it retrieved. But your said our purposes didn't conflict, and yet you know this was used by Dr. Carstairs?" He arched an eyebrow at her.

"The Lab sent me to retrieve Dr. Carstairs's field equipment. I have no interest in his collected data, so we have nothing to fight over."

Ryland rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he approached.

"I see. This isn't Lab equipment, though. It looks like one of _Pioneer 1_'s weather observation devices."

Lyon nodded.

"Right. He was using it as a central unit for gathering the information from the data monitors I'm here to retrieve. I'm hoping I can pinpoint their locations so I don't have to search this whole block by hand."

"Good thinking; that sounds like it'd be a thankless job. But won't there be security codes?"

Lyon nodded again. The communications algorithms of her personality matrix included a variety of non-verbal signals and body language designed to make her conversations as effective and as natural (from an organic's viewpoint) as possible.

"It doesn't appear to be too hard. Or, if you're feeling generous, you could just uncode Dr. Cartairs's subdirectory for me."

"I would if I could, but I'm not very good with computers."

That didn't seem right. There was an obvious flaw in Ryland's claim and it was enough to trigger Lyon to return to the combat-perceptions mode she'd been in at the beginning of the encounter.

"Your client hired you to retrieve data from a secured unit and didn't either provide you with a means of access or verify that you could do the job yourself?" she asked, dubious.

Ryland grinned, making him look almost boyish.

"I don't blame you for being suspicious, but it's the truth. Technically, though, your latter suggestion was actually the right one: he did make sure I could handle the job."

"You just said you weren't very good with computers."

"My client wants me to physically bring back the data module for analysis, not just retrieve the information on it."

It was absurd yet believable enough to have Lyon drop out of combat-ready status, halting the subroutines that were calculating attack angles, possible tactics, and threat responses.

"Physically? Seriously?"

"He says he doesn't have access to passcodes or security crackers, but if he gets his hands on the data module he can take it to people in the Lab who do."

"That's actually a kind of creative solution to the problem," Lyon admired. "Before you do that, do you mind if I try to get in? I really don't want to have to search this entire section the hard way if I can help it."

"Be my guest," Ryland said, gesturing at the system. "I'm always glad to help out a fellow hunter."

"Particularly if all you have to do is stand and wait for a few minutes."

"Those are my favorite kinds of favors," he agreed.

It was a calculated risk, as Ryland's casual, easy discussion could have been nothing but a pack of lies, but Lyon turned her back on the Force and set her hands to the terminal's touchboard. She could gain a definite advantage by directly connecting herself to the monitoring station's computer rather than using the interface designed for organics, but the idea of doing so fired off emotional flags not too different from what Ryland would see as shudders up and down his spine. The vulnerability of a direct connection ran two ways, and Lyon had no desire to expose her brain to outside hacking.

Luckily, she didn't have to; the security protocols were minimal. Lyon set up a simple program that teased the system into giving up the passcode, which she fed back in to unlock Dr. Carstairs's files. It was the work of an instant to open up the running process by which data was being received from the eleven monitors, collated, and stored. Lyon looked up the incoming datastreams for their recorded origin points and input them into the wrist-mounted navigational system she like most hunters wore in the field.

"All done," she said happily, and turned back to the Force. "If you have some kind of data disk you could download a copy and save your client some trouble. Um...what's wrong?" she asked him. "Ryland, you look like someone just hit you in the back of the head."

"That...didn't look like it was very difficult."

"It wasn't. I'm no hacker, though I actually am quite skilled at bypassing physical security and alarms. This was easy work, just a basic passcode to bypass, not even any encryption."

"But he must surely have known..." Ryland began. His voice trailed off and a smile slowly grew across his face.

"Okay, now you're scaring me. That's a very strange grin."

"It's a very strange job." He shook his head as if clearing it. "Sorry, it's just that I'm fond of this kind of quest. I like puzzles and mysteries; monster hunts and fetch quests are a little on the boring side."

"Boring is a relative term. Personally, I find dodging Nano Dragon laser breath to be highly exciting...but I know what you mean. But how is this a mystery?" It was really none of her business, but Ryland had gotten her interested, darn it, and it was his choice to talk about his job with another hunter.

"Well, it's just that I was sent to retrieve the data module. Why? Because my client didn't have the access codes. But as you've just demonstrated, it wasn't hard to bypass the terminal's security. Why didn't my client just include your level of computer skill among the prerequisites for the quest listing and save the trouble of taking it physically?"

Lyon shrugged.

"Most Lab projects are buried under six levels of e-security. Maybe he just didn't know this one wasn't."

Ryland shook his head.

"I don't think so. My client was Dr. Carstairs's assistant. Even if he didn't have the passcodes, he ought to have known the basic _level_ of security involved."

That _was_ odd, Lyon had to admit. It seemed an awful lot of trouble to go through when hiring a qualified hunter--of which there were many--would have been a much more efficient solution. Moreover, removing the data module physically was a classic "thinking outside the box" solution, which organics rarely resorted to unless they'd exhausted the possibilities within the initially apparent parameters of a situation.

"Are you sure your client really is Dr. Carstairs's assistant?"

"A false identity? No, I checked; I don't like it when a job takes me off-guard that way. Edwin Scolos is who he says he is."

"Then what?"

"There's only one thing I can think of. Physically removing the data module takes the data out of this monitoring system permanently. No hacker, no matter how good, can extract what isn't there, while if I just went and retrieved a copy anyone else could come along and do the same."

"That follows," Lyon agreed.

Ryland rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"For some reason," he concluded, "Scolos doesn't just want Dr. Carstairs's research data, but also wants to make sure no one else can get their hands on it."


	4. Chapter 4

Despite herself, Lyon found herself intrigued by the situation. Ordinarily, mysteries and conspiracies were not her favorite environment: the job hazards never turned out to be what she expected, the goals (and therefore the chances of getting paid) were often unclear, and third parties' futures as well as abstract ideals like justice rested in her hands, a responsibility she did not enjoy.

Perhaps it was the Force's fault; Ryland's enthusiasm had an infectious quality to it. Or maybe it was just her growing distaste for the usual back-room games, the idea that someone was trying to get away with something. Just because she didn't like that kind of job didn't mean she wanted to see some sneak get away with an underhanded plot. And her own job, which had seemed straightforward to the point of being boring (excepting the inevitable monster attacks), now looked as if it could have deeper implications. That was when a hunter had to start watching her back.

"So why would he do that?" she asked. "Why would your client want to get the data out of circulation?"

"I don't know. It could be benign--a concern that some third party might try to steal the data and usurp Dr. Carstairs's research. It's a little paranoid, but then again Dr. Carstairs was _murdered_ by a rival scientist so a little intellectual plagiarism isn't some crazy flight of fancy. Or it could be selfish--Scolos wants the glory of completing the project for himself, an opportunity that he wouldn't get ordinarily because he's only assistant rank. Or it's something else entirely, which means that any speculation is pretty much guesswork."

"What _is_ this data, anyway?"

Ryland shrugged.

"Search me. I'm just paid to carry it around."

"In that case, I'm going to take a look. I'm curious."

Since she was already past the security, it took no time at all to access the files. It appeared to be strictly an accumulation of biological data drawn from the various monitors Lyon had been sent to collect, assembled and collated so that the files tracked the collected bio-data over time across the whole section. As for the _kind_ of bio-data, it seemed reasonably basic, dealing largely with the location and movements of a single type of large animal.

"Rappies," she said. "This data is all about Rappies."

"That makes sense," Ryland said. "Scolos said that it was Dr. Guls who murdered Carstairs, out of jealousy over this project."

"But what's in that to play conspiracy games over?"

"Probably nothing," Ryland agreed, "especially as you're telling me that the data is what it's purported to be. Still, it's worth checking out. I'll extract the data module and return it, but can you make me a copy first? If it all turns out to be innocent I'll just dispose of it, but if not..."

"All right; give me a disk."

Ryland blinked.

"What?"

"A disk," Lyon prompted. "Something to save the data on."

"Um...I don't have one."

Lyon sighed, or rather her speech device imitated the sound since she didn't actually breathe.

"You know, what with hacking past security and providing data disks," she said, slotting one of her own into the machine. "I'm providing a fair amount of help, here, on a job I'm not getting paid for."

"Hmm. You have a point." Ryland then brightened. "How about I help with your job, then? Two hunters can deal with any monsters faster and more safely than one, and I'm sure you'll run into a few while collecting those monitors."

"You've got a deal." She paused, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "You agreed to that awfully fast, Ryland."

"Well, I have to admit that I'd like to take a look around the section, since this is where the suspect data was collected...and like I said, two hunters can deal with monsters faster and more safely than one."

Lyon laughed.

"I like you, Ryland."

"Most people do," he quipped.

Over the course of the next hour, as they passed from block to block throughout the forest, Lyon gained an appreciation of the Force's abilities in the field as well. Ryland seemed to concentrate almost exclusively on techniques, so Lyon's liking for hand-to-hand combat suited their partnership well. Armored by Ryland's techniques for enhancing damage and the power of Photon armor, she held the creatures at bay while he sapped their strength, then rained fire, ice, and lightning down on them. They were both a little over-aggressive at first--each trying to do too much because they didn't know how far they could trust the other to pull his or her own weight--but settled into a rough rhythm that dispatched the monsters with relative ease.

She also found him to have a few intriguing theories about the conditions on Ragol. Lyon had been lying on her back so she could squirm under a prickly-leafed shrub, wondering about the cosmetic damage it would inflict on her carapace as she fought to uproot one of the data monitors when she asked what all this undergrowth was doing there in the first place.

"I mean, even if all of the buildings and pavement were somehow destroyed, how did trees and shrubs and grass and all that grow back so fast?"

"Actually, I don't think they did."

"I've got a two-inch scratch on my cheek that would argue with you," Lyon pointed out, glad that her damage-control perceptions did not include a sense of pain. She twisted and pulled simultaneously, and the data monitor pulled free.

"Well, I didn't mean that the plant life isn't there," Ryland said, chuckling. "I meant that it didn't have to grow _back_."

Lyon wriggled out from under the bush, stood, and started brushing off twigs and dirt.

"You're going to have to explain that one."

"I have my doubts that there ever were buildings here."

"But this is the Residential Area. And it's clearly been settled; look at all the security gates, Photon collectors, communications antennas..."

"But nothing else. The way I see it, the Central Dome provided all of _Pioneer 1_'s residence facilities. With the exception of projects like the secret underground bio-labs, I think that arcology contained everything between the main dome and its adjoining towers. This area out here, the forest surrounding the dome, was surveyed, gated, and marked out for future expansion of the settlement, quite possibly for the colonists of _Pioneer 2_. But it was never actually used for residences. We just don't quite get the correct impression of the Central Dome because it was utterly demolished inside by the magma vents and by nesting dragons. If we could see it as it was, we wouldn't have the same impression of the Dome as a large, empty space when it was likely very similar to the domed city within _Pioneer 2_."

"That's an interesting theory."

"At the least, it explains the most troubling mystery of the Residential Area. People can be removed from an area without trace by a variety of means, but destroying large objects is not simple. It seems to me the simplest explanation of why this forest looks like it does is because it _is_ just a forest."

Lyon nodded; the idea made sense. Abruptly, she bent to strap up the data monitor with the other six she'd retrieved when she noticed that a chunk had been burned or blasted away near the top, about three inches high, two wide, and one deep.

"Oh, blast it. The Lab wanted these things back to re-use. I hope they're not going to try to argue they shouldn't pay for this one because it's been damaged."

"I think the better question might be, _how_ was it damaged?"

"The better question for a man not being paid on a per-unit basis, maybe," Lyon grumbled, which just made Ryland smile.

"We all have our own perspective on things," he teased. "Seriously, can I get a closer look?"

"Sure." She passed it over.

"This looks like damage inflicted by an energy-based attack," he reflected. Lyon had already formed that conclusion in her first look at the instrument and said so.

"It could be fire or lightning, or an attack from a Photon weapon."

"Not an accident, then."

"Actually, it could easily be from a hunter's gun firing a stray shot. The damage would nicely match a glance from a handgun or rifle round."

"It's still not the kind of accident you'd expect, though, not pecked by a curious Rappy or stepped on by a Hildebear."

"Do you think it was done deliberately?"

"Let's just say that I'm curious. There's too much in the way of suspicious circumstances so far. It _might_ all be innocent, but then again there might be something going on."

Lyon pressed a hand to her chest in an expression of mock surprise.

"Ah! I can scarcely believe my ears! An under-the-table development concerning a Lab project on Ragol? How could such a thing be?"

"You do sarcasm well."

"Thank you. Let's finish this before the rain rolls in. I don't like the look of those clouds."

Of the remaining four data monitors, two more proved to be damaged in similar fashion. Coincidence was becoming less and less likely, particularly when Lyon noted that the three damaged units were all from the northeast part of the section.

"They were intentionally disabled," Ryland agreed. "The question is, why? Some rival who wanted to shut down Carstairs's project? Or someone afraid of what the data monitors might reveal?"

"We've been over every inch of Residential Three and there's no sign of anything unusual," Lyon said. "If something was being hidden, then it didn't leave any trace."

"So it probably isn't that...maybe."

Lyon finished securing the data monitors into a single bundle for delivery.

"Are you going to do anything else about it?" she asked.

Ryland nodded.

"I'm too curious to let it go at this--and I _hate_ being sold a bill of goods by my client. I understand the need-to-know principle, but being lied to is an entirely different matter. And if someone is up to something underhanded, well, I'm in favor of justice."

Lyon surprised herself by being glad that Ryland wanted to continue the investigation, then surprised herself again by being worried about what might happen if he annoyed the wrong people or turned up the wrong secrets while following up. She examined her emotional settings and noted that the feelings were both natural outgrowths of a nascent feeling of friendship towards Ryland.

That was curious. She rarely formed quick friendships. Her emotional architecture had a fairly complex series of tasks to accomplish before Lyon's personality would afford a person the enhanced status of intimacy and trust that friendship meant. Ryland seemed to have satisfied a number of the preliminary steps already. Since the event was unusual, she ran a diagnostic to make sure that everything was functioning properly, but nothing proved out of the ordinary. Just a data artifact, then, a statistical outlier that she would meet someone with whom she could form a fast friendship, she noted with relief.

"So what's your next step?" she asked.

"Well, the first thing is to report in to my client, deliver the data module, and get paid. It'll calm his suspicions, for one thing, and since I have a copy it won't get in the way. Plus, money is good; I don't do this solely for the intellectual exercise. You'll probably want to report in, too."

"Quite."

"After that, I think the next step is to have an expert take a look at this data. If there's something incriminating in a stream of Rappy bio-data, then I'm not going to be able to cull it from the general noise."

"Do you have a contact who can do that?"

"I know of someone who might. There is a little problem, though."

"What's that?"

"He's currently under arrest for murder."


	5. Chapter 5

"You want me to let you just waltz in and chat with a man who's under arrest for murder and awaiting trial?" To say that Inspector Laleham, chief homicide inspector for _Pioneer 2_'s military police, was not impressed by the request was a definite understatement.

Ryland grinned disingenuously at him. "Basically, yes."

"I don't know why I don't throw you out of here, and this tin can after you. With luck she'll _land_ on you."

"'Tin can,' indeed. Did that sound offensive to you, Lyon? It certainly sounded like a racist insult to _me_, but I'm not the tin can in question."

Lyon judged that given known data there was a 72.9-percent chance that the insult in question had been meant as an expression of frustration with Ryland rather than as a reflection of personal feelings about androids. Accordingly she decided to redirect the conversation. She reached out and batted Ryland's ponytail, which spun around his head so the tip brushed his nose. He twitched, then let out a sudden sneeze.

"Ignore him," Lyon advised the Inspector. "I've worked with military androids before, and 'tin can' is one of the more flattering terms I've heard used to describe them. However, our request to see Dr. Guls is serious."

"I'm sure it is. The point of him being locked up, though, is to prevent contact with the rest of the world. It's a punishment, remember?"

Ryland rubbed his nose, shot Lyon a look, and said, "True, but he hasn't been convicted, yet. For now he's only under arrest, in custody to prevent flight, suicide, or tampering with evidence before trial."

"Technically. There's no way the panel of judges will let him slide on this. We have motive, we have opportunity, and he was damned well near caught in the act. Another eccentric scientist getting a little _too_ eccentric and bumping off a rival--and for once without bits and pieces of three conspiracies, six political plots, and a couple of shadow governments dumped in to clog up the mix."

Lyon and Ryland shared a look. Being a trained observer, Laleham caught it at once.

"Oh, hell no," he groaned. "Don't tell me..."

"We are following up on some curious facts about the late Dr. Carstairs's final project, the one which was apparently the motive for his murder."

Laleham groaned again.

"You know, even though I'm a military police officer, I didn't _have_ to take this post. They gave an opt-out clause for people who didn't want to go settle another planet. I could be back on Coral, arresting drunken privates who start bar brawls." He sounded almost wistful. "All right, what have you got?"

Lyon wondered how much it was sensible to tell the Inspector, then decided to leave it up to Ryland. It was the Force's investigation, and he was the one who knew Laleham, besides.

_Laleham's an honest policeman,_ Ryland had told her, _at least to the extent possible when the military chain of command isn't forcing him to take something and like it._

"I don't really know," Ryland said. "That's why I need to talk to Dr. Guls. Someone's been playing games with the research data Dr. Carstairs was collecting, but I don't know why. It might just be private and personal, or even strictly coincidence, but it's starting to look like a cover-up."

"So how does Dr. Guls fit in?"

"It's esoteric bio-data concerning Rappies. Putting it bluntly, there's no way I can figure out what might _be_ covered up without an expert to tell me what it is I'm looking at. When it comes to Rappies, that expert is Dr. Guls."

"You're lucky he's even around to ask. He was nearly killed when he tried to cover up the murder by destroying--" Laleham broke off suddenly, his gaze fixed on Ryland's as he realized the significance of what he was saying. Then he broke into a string of fairly inventive curses.

"Let's see," Ryland tallied the score. "Murder the scientist. Destroy his lab unit. Sabotage data-gathering devices. Steal the gathered data. Frame and nearly kill the remaining scientist capable of interpreting said data. I think that if anyone wants to start floating conspiracy theories, they're not going to sound particularly crazy at this point."

"At the very least it would suggest that a second look at the circumstances of the murder would be worthwhile," Lyon contributed.

"There's no way around it," Laleham said bitterly. "You two might as well sit in. It's not like the information I've got hasn't apparently been vetted by assorted gray eminences before I even got to see it or something." He tapped a few keys on his computer and three holo-screens phased in above it along the wall of his narrow office.

"Here's the victim: Dr. Evo Carstairs, age forty-three, mid-level researcher at the Lab with a background in avian zoology. Information from the Lab places him in the bio-development section under Dr Chroehl, but not assigned to a specific project team, instead involved in his own authorized work. Cause of death was a stab wound in the chest. The knife was still in the body; we found Dr. Guls's fingerprints and traces of skin cells on the grip."

"That sounds straightforward enough," Ryland admitted.

"Right. Death had taken place approximately forty beats before the attempt to destroy the lab."

"We haven't heard the details on that, yet."

Laleham called up a security log on another screen.

"At 817.3 nine days ago, you can see that the security sensors detected the explosion. It appears to have been a conventional blast, not a Photon charge, and probably constructed from chemicals present in the Lab's own experimental facilities." He called up the chemical signature left in the explosive's trace remnants, then hit another key to display a 3-D model of the lab.

"The bomb was placed here at the computer. The Lab chief's assistant testified that the Lab is in the process of creating a new central mainframe, but it's only in the development stages, so apparently a lot of data is still being stored on local units."

"That's convenient for our conspirators," Lyon noted. "Although, of course, we're looking at this after the fact. If the circumstances had been different, then the events would also have been different in response."

"In other words, it's only neat and tidy because the guilty party planned it that way, not from luck," Ryland translated.

"The security team that investigated the explosion found Dr. Guls here, and the corpse here," Laleham ignored the byplay and had the computer add the bodies to the display. "Guls was nearly unconscious from his injuries. Our reconstruction suggests there was a flaw in the bomb's design, making it go off both too soon and with only a portion of the explosive material consumed so that the power was reduced. A slower reaction would have caused the bomb to go off at full strength, also destroying the corpse to conceal evidence of murder and giving Guls the chance to get away, but the chemical compound he chose to use was volatile and easy to make mistakes with, so he was caught in the blast and it didn't destroy anything but some of the equipment, including the computer. Or at least, that's what we thought until now. A skilled demolitions expert could have prepared the bomb to do precisely what it did do."

"I gather there were no traces of drugs in Dr. Guls's system?" Ryland asked.

"No, and the Medical Center did do the standard tests. He'd suffered a head injury, which appeared to be from striking against a counter in the explosion, but..."

"It could have been the classic blunt instrument. Someone hits him over the head, puts the body in the lab with the corpse, and sets off the bomb. Instant frame."

"Or not," Laleham pointed out. "There's still no direct evidence that it didn't happen just as it appeared to happen. And before you ask, an arrest has been made on the basis of physical evidence, with witness testimony as to the two men's rivalry providing motive. I can't release Guls just because things look suspicious. This far into the process, I need proof." He drummed his fingers on the desk "What I can do is grant your request to talk to him. Suspicion's good enough to justify that. Who knows; maybe he can help tell you something that'll save his own backside."

~X X X~

The holding cells attached to milipol headquarters didn't have doors per se. Instead, energy fields stretched across the arched openings, their locations marked by thin red lines that strobed upwards through the fields. Lyon and Ryland were familiar with similar fields from Ragol's surface, where they were occasionally used in place of security gates. Their use here made sense to Lyon; they increased visibility for those outside the cells and were as impermeable as blocks of solid steel would have been.

"Photon suppressors are in effect here in Holding," their escorting officer said. These prevented the drivers in Photon weapons from activating and the energy in techniques from expressing itself. Similar technology was in place on the Hunter's Guild dock. "If the prisoner tries anything desperate, you'll have to use your hands. Better yet, call for help. We'll be locking you in, so call when you're ready to leave." He glanced down at the portable data unit Lyon was carrying. "I can't believe you're giving a murderer access to electronics."

"Criminal or not, he's still a scientist," Ryland said. "He has plenty of useful knowledge, and in his current situation we think he might be motivated to be cooperative."

The soldier snorted.

"Hoping to buy his way out of a maximum sentence with what he knows, you mean?"

Ryland shrugged.

"I just ask questions. Making deals is someone else's job."

The soldier grinned, probably getting the completely wrong idea--which was the point.

"Here we go; cell six."

The holding cell was about as spartan as it got: there was a bed and a toilet. A low-end dataplate--the kind that offered read-only operation, without analysis or interactive functions--lay on the bed next to the man who sat there, slumped dejectedly. He wore a prisoner's baggy tunic and pants, dull gray with electric red piping. From the hints of gray in his tightly-curled, light brown hair and the look of the skin on his face Lyon estimated his age as being in his mid-forties. He had a neatly trimmed moustache and wore round-framed spectacles.

"Dr. Guls," the soldier barked. The prisoner's head snapped up. "You have visitors. Remain seated while the security field is down." The guard took a hand control from his belt and keyed it; the red lines in the field turned to blue. Lyon and Ryland entered the cell and another press of the guard's control resealed it.

"There's a call button inside the cell," he said. "Signal me when you're done." He turned and walked back up the corridor.

Dr. Guls blinked owlishly as he looked from one hunter to the other.

"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

He directed the questions at Ryland, which Lyon had found was a common failing among organics, particularly Lab and military types who worked with androids required to operate in limited or subservient roles rather than being independent. It annoyed her in a way Laleham's slur hadn't; that was merely disrespectful language without specific hostile intent while this was a disrespectful action, automatically assuming that Lyon occupied a secondary position. She therefore spoke up before Ryland could.

"We're hunters from the Guild. During the course of our jobs, data has come into our hands which we need expert advice to help interpret."

Dr. Guls glanced around the cell.

"Things must be pretty desperate if you had to come to the jail just to find a scientist."

"It's a question of expertise. Where it concerns the Rappy, you're the top man."

The change triggered by the word "Rappy" was remarkable, even astonishing. It was as if it had activated some subroutine in his operating functions or whatever the organic equivalent was. The weariness of imprisonment dropped away at once, his posture straightened, his eyes lit up, and his expression was consumed with eager anticipation. It was almost as if a dozen years had been stripped off his age in an instant.

"Ahh, the Rappy!" he sighed blissfully. "Ragol's most wonderful mystery! So lovely and cute, yet fierce and cunning and still playful! And you say that you have data concerning them?"

"Yes. We need your opinion as an expert."

"Let me see! Let me see!" he said eagerly. Lyon and Ryland shared a glance--_This guy is a genius scientist?_--but there wasn't really much else to be done. Lyon passed over the computer and Ryland gave Dr. Guls the disk with the copy of the Carstairs project data. The prisoner was enthusiastic, even frantic in his movements as he powered up the unit. The computer's Net access had been disabled for security purposes, but had analysis and data manipulation capabilities that Guls's prisoner dataplate lacked.

"Oho! Rappy bio-data, life cycle and migration patterns! Excellent! This is the kind of large-scale project I've been wanting to do for months, only Dr. Croehl assigned it to that idiot Carstairs, and--" His head snapped up. "Wait a minute! This is _his_ project data, isn't it? What kind of trick is this?"

"No trick," Ryland said. "Who else could interpret this data besides you?"

"But they claim that I killed Carstairs _because_ of this project. Why would anyone let me have access to it?"

"_Did_ you kill him?"

"Of course not! Knifing people, setting bombs, how could you think I'd be capable of that? And as for destroying the project data, it's utterly impossible! Destroy information about the Rappy? It's a hellish crime!"

It said something, Lyon thought, that Dr. Guls seemed to regard the loss of knowledge as being a worse offense than taking a life.

"We had our doubts about that, too. Someone killed him, though, and maybe this project data will tell us why. This might help you prove your own innocence."

"Or at the least you'll learn more about the Rappies," Lyon pointed out.

"You're right!" Guls exclaimed. He hunkered over the machine and got to work, fingers flying over the control board and a rapt expression on his face. Minutes passed one by one without either his expression changing or hands slowing. The twenty-five-beat mark passed, and Ryland was starting to show signs of impatience. A few beats later, though, a frown began to emerge on Guls's lips and he slowed, starting to review things more carefully.

"What are they doing? How dare they take such liberties!" he erupted. "My poor Rappies!"

"What is it?"

"The migration data. Look!"

The hunters came over so they could see the screen, which displayed strings of what looked like time-position plottings.

"I'll put it on a map to make it easier to see." A navigational grid of the clearings in Residential Section 03 came on screen. Brightly colored dots, obviously Rappies, milled around and through the clearings in what looked like an intricate dance. Suddenly, they changed. Streams of them flowed out of the northeast corner of the map. Those that entered exited again at once. Then that corner of the map went completely dark, obviously indicating the damaged monitors. "See? Something is disturbing the Rappies, driving them away from there!"

"Is there any sign of what?"

Guls shook his head.

"No; this data only indicates the Rappies; it's not concerned with externals. Slipshod work by Carstairs, really; he'd have to cross-check against other data to draw useful conclusions!"

"But we went over every inch of that area, and there was nothing," Lyon said.

"They could have cleaned up after themselves when they were done."

"Ryland, if they're still running a cover-up today, there must still be something there to find."

"That's a point, but..."

"Excuse me," Dr. Guls interjected, "but are you saying that the people who scared the Rappies killed Dr. Carstairs to conceal this data?"

"That's our best guess," Ryland agreed.

"Well, then, you don't need to be looking for whatever it is on this map."

"No?"

"Not at all. We're seeing the effects here, but this map merely shows the area which is covered by Dr. Carstairs's data collection devices. The actual occurrences--whatever it is that is influencing the Rappies' behavior--are taking place well off this map."

"Off the map? How far off?" Ryland quizzed.

"Well, I should be able to work that out from the data..." It took about three beats of muttering while he wrestled the computer, but at last he announced success. "It should be roughly...here."

The map shrank to a corner of the screen and a pulsing red dot appeared in the gray mass northeast of Residential Three. "It's only an estimate, of course; I can't be more precise."

"Yes, but where _is_ that?" was Lyon's question.

"This computer has no Net connection, since Dr. Guls is a prisoner," Ryland explained. "It has no way to link up to any other map of Ragol's surface beyond what's in the data."

"How useful."

"Can't you tell?"

She looked at Ryland, then groaned. Of course, he was right. She called up her internal memories of the Residential Area's layout, then adjusted scale and plotted the point.

"It looks like it's somewhere in Residential Twelve."

"In that case, Lyon, would you care to do some sight-seeing on the surface? I hear Residential Twelve is lovely at the new year."


	6. Chapter 6

"It's a bad tactical move, going into a situation blind like this," Lyon stated as they approached the teleporter that linked _Pioneer 2_'s Guild deck to Ragol.

"Particularly," Ryland agreed blithely, "when someone is apparently running a shadow operation in the area."

"And yet you're..._chirpy_ about it."

"I'm sorry. I'm just happy to have been proved correct. I can make deductions all day, but they're just an intellectual exercise without proof. Now, though, we know that Dr. Carstairs's data pointed directly to whatever is happening in Residential Twelve."

"If we believe Dr. Guls."

"You don't?"

"No; I'm just being difficult. My emotional programing is set for me to be crabby when I'm faced with a questionable situation. Insufficient data irritates me."

"I've noticed that...wait, you were serious? I mean, that was the literal truth, and not just a description?"

Lyon nodded.

"Of course."

"So you're actually consciously _aware_ of that?"

"I don't have a subconscious mind like organics do. All of my thoughts and emotions are directly accessible, so they all take place at what you'd call a conscious level."

"So _that's_ what it is." Ryland snapped his fingers on the word "that."

"What? Is it something I said?"

"No, not you. It's Dr. Montague's experimental android, Elenor Camuel. She's supposed to be more emotionally advanced than any android yet, but from what I can tell androids on your level already show the same degree of emotional capacity as any organic."

"Thank you." She felt slightly embarrassed.

"Now I understand the difference, though. Elenor has a subconscious mind; she doesn't have your level of self-awareness."

"Poor girl," Lyon said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"What?" Ryland looked confused.

"Elenor...I feel sorry for her."

"So, you wouldn't want a subconscious?"

Lyon shuddered, as she was equipped to communicate her emotions via body language as well as speech.

"Not for a million meseta! Can you imagine it? Part of your brain ticking away on a black-box level, absorbing, analyzing, and manipulating data, then generating priority commands to your active operations and you having no idea how or why those commands were generated? It would be...like being hacked by my own brain!" She shuddered again.

Ryland looked at her over the top of his spectacles.

"Do you know, Lyon, I could gladly have gone my entire life without having you explain it precisely that way, since that is _exactly_ how my own brain _does_ work and the imagery is now creeping me out!"

"Sorry."

"It's not a problem. I can't fault you for design improvements, after all. I just hope it's not a bad omen for the mission."

"Just once I'd like to go down to Ragol," she agreed, "with accurate intel from a recon team instead of _being_ the recon team."

"Well, then, there you go. We're not just the recon team this time, but also the main mission team, and we're our own clients making the command decisions."

"I like you. You make 'out on a limb' sound better than I ever could." She set the teleporter for Residential Section 12. "Ready?"

"Mostly."

"Let's go."

They stepped into the device and felt the lurch as they were sent down from orbit. The instantaneous transmission of matter was yet another of the mysteries of Photon technology, the unique energy source that seemed to redefine basic concepts of the laws of nature with each new discovery. On a day-to-day basis she took it for granted, but whenever Lyon had a reason to compare the modern world to pre-Photon days the differences amazed her.

The moment of transition cleared, and they found themselves in a forest clearing, little different than those in Residential Section 03. There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.

"I'm surprised we didn't end up facing a squad of guards," she commented.

"Too risky," Ryland countered. "If something's happening here that's out of the ordinary, whomever's behind it won't want to have evidence of it everywhere. Better to keep any guards and watchers back at a chokepoint instead of where a chance intruder might just jump back into the teleporter."

"It's a point."

"Keep your eyes open, though."

Ryland made a couple of quick gestures, summoning up the Deband and Shifta techniques. These temporary enhancers interacted with the Photon energy of their defensive gear as well as weaponry, making both more effective. It was one of the advantages of having a Force in any hunter team; they not only fought on their own but in a support role increased the effectiveness of the whole group.

As prepared as they were going to get, they moved out. Residential Twelve was near to the Central Dome, now just a hollowed-out shell over a series of tunnels and magma vents through which a species of fire dragon occasionally surfaced. It was still an impressive sight from the outside, from its sheer size and from its attractive, clean-looking design, surrounded by the rings that had supported its communications and sensor array and by the abutting towers, egg-shaped and terraced, that looked almost like chicks clustered close to a mother hen.

_I've been thinking about Rappies too much_, Lyon thought, a bit amused at herself. Just because she had an aesthetic sense didn't mean she had to give it free rein, particularly on a mission.

They kept their eyes out for surveillance drones, security devices, or guards, expecting any of the possibilities. What they got, however, were the usual monsters, a swarm of claw-handed Boomas, together with the sleek, furred and plated forms of savage wolves. While the Boomas simply charged directly at the nearest intruder, the wolves would circle, stalk, and pounce only when they saw an opening. The combination made them difficult to keep track of simultaneously, but Lyon and Ryland were both experienced hunters. She launched a confusion trap into the path of the Boomas which Ryland detonated, and then while the hulking humanoids were clawing at each other in a frenzy the two hunters dispatched the wolves. By the time the trap's effects had worn off, they were able to give the weakened group of Boomas their full attention.

Creatures were present in the next two blocks they investigated as well. These fights proved only slightly more difficult then the first one had, but they were definitely not what Lyon had been expecting to find in the section.

"It doesn't make sense," she told Ryland while he was using the Resta technique to patch up the gash a Gigobooma's claws had left in her side. "We expected to find something out of the ordinary here, but so far it's been exactly like any other forest section. And it's not just that there's been no sign of any people, but the presence of monsters. There's no way that anyone is running an op in an uncleared section."

Ryland shook his head.

"That's not necessarily true. It's more true in the underground areas, but even here there's really no way to permanently maintain a cleared state. Monsters can return all too quickly--Boomas tunneling underground, wolves creeping through the underbrush, Hildebears just crashing through or jumping over natural boundaries...but there's one thing which does suggest that we're on the right track."

"Eh?"

He smiled, her expression faintly smug.

"Have you seen a Rappy since we arrived here?"

"We've only been in four blocks so far, and that's counting the one where we arrived."

"But still, it's a point."

Thunder rumbled, heat lightning illuminating the dark gray clouds overhead.

"Not necessarily a good point. Not every section is chock-full of Rappies."

"But have you ever encountered one with none at all?"

Lyon thought it over. Ryland had a point. Rappies were fairly thick on the ground in the Residential Area, and since the birds were smart enough to flee instead of fight to the death their numbers weren't being appreciably thinned by the efforts of hunters.

"No, I haven't," she admitted.

"So we still have an anomaly, and with it a reason to keep on looking."

They pushed on to the east, in the general direction of the Central Dome. After staving off the attack of a dozen wolves, they were faced with a choice of exits to the east and south. While Ryland consulted his navigation system to see what route might be most productive, Lyon began to look around, when she suddenly stopped.

"Ryland, do you feel that?"

He looked up.

"Yeah, it's started raining. I hate drizzle; it disturbs my concentration when I'm trying to direct lightning techniques."

Lyon shook her head.

"No, not the rain, the ground."

"The ground?"

She walked a couple of steps towards him, frowned, then went back to where she'd been when she'd spoken up.

"Come over here."

"Why?"

"Because I can't feel it over where you are."

He came over to stand next to her.

"What is it that I'm supposed to be feeling?"

"The ground. It's vibrating, and--wait, are you telling me you _can't_ feel it?"

"Not a thing." He paused. "As an android, are your senses more receptive to that kind of stimulus?"

Lyon accessed her specifications and compared them to what her database held by way of human sense parameters. Unfortunately, biology wasn't one of her better areas of knowledge, so while she knew the extent of her own capacity she was sketchy on what she needed to compare it to.

"I don't know; I'm not sure how sensitive to it you'd be. It's possible."

"Probable, since you're feeling it now." Ryland gave his ponytail a yank, as if he was trying to pull-start his brain. "Wait a minute--that's it! It must be!"

"What must?"

"These vibrations that you're feeling. Animals can be very sensitive to earth tremors. Before the invention of modern seismic monitoring equipment, one of the early warning sings of geological upsets on Coral was the unusual behavior of animals; it was always reported before earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Their much more highly refined senses could detect the initial tremors that humans couldn't."

"So you think that the Rappies are feeling the same vibrations that I am?"

"Right, only they must be even more sensitive than you. That's why they're avoiding this area. To them, it feels like there's going to be some kind of earth upheaval!"

"It's a good idea, Ryland, but what about the other animals? The ones we've been fighting so far haven't shown any sign of being disturbed. The Boomas actually burrow _through_ the ground, so you'd think they'd be the first to react oddly."

"That's true; I hadn't thought of--no, wait!" His face, which had begun to fall, brightened again. "Remember, the Rappies are unique among the large animals of Ragol. The Boomas, the wolves, and the Hildebears all show completely unnatural behavior in the way they attack humans, Newmen, and androids--but not other animals--and how they do so relentlessly, ignoring injuries or the deaths of packmates. Indeed, I've heard that there's recovered _Pioneer 1_ data that showed completely different behavior during the seven years of initial colonization."

Following his chain of reasoning, Lyon completed the thought.

"You think, then, that because the other animals are under the influence of...whatever it is...they don't respond to their natural instincts?"

"Right! They ignore danger, ignore fear in battle, so why not from other sources as well?"

"But Rappies _do_ show fear. They run away from fights before being too hurt, so they also have the capacity to react instinctively to these vibrations, is that what you're saying?"

"That's it exactly!" Ryland agreed. "I just hope it doesn't mean we're out here chasing a new volcano about to go off underneath us."

Lyon didn't even bother responding to that, but just glared at him flatly. It was an expression she was good at, since her eyes were blank blue lights instead of human-looking ones.

"Right, of course; no one runs complicated, murderous cover-ups over a volcano. Sorry about that; I got distracted by the animal explanation."

"That's okay; I'll just put it in memory and flag it for recall when you catch me doing something similar."

"Darn, you actually can do that, too. Remind me to get a disabler for the next time I embarrass myself in front of you."

"Cute. Shall we try to find the source of these vibrations?"

"Lead the way, Lyon, since you're the one who can actually feel them."

She nodded.

"They seem to be stronger over this way."

They went through the easterly gate into a narrow, passage-like extension of an extremely broad clearing. Rather than continuing, Lyon instead crossed to an open gate which appeared to be a kind of side door. It led into a small well-like block no more than twenty feet square. Large metal crates suggested that it had been a kind of storage cache for _Pioneer 1_.

"This is the strongest I've felt it so far," Lyon said. "Only, it's a dead end."

"Let's check these crates," Ryland suggested. "Maybe something's inside one of them?" Suiting actions to words, he pried the top off the nearest one. "That's funny; it's completely empty. Not even junk inside."

"So's this one."

"And this...Wait a second; help me move these crates. It shouldn't be too hard."

It wasn't; their metal sides were thin and the two hunters were able to push the four crates back against the rocky walls.

"Well, would you look at that, Lyon. Someone's gone and left a trapdoor under those crates."


	7. Chapter 7

The trapdoor was metal, around four feet square, and set into a kind of lip. A touchpad was set into the base of the door, its keys glowing redly.

"Looks like whomever put this here remembered to lock up," Lyon noted.

"Well, you did say that you were good with alarms and physical security."

"I did say that, didn't I? Well, let me take a shot at it."

Producing a small toolkit, she pried the face off the keyplate and got to work. It wasn't easy, as the lock was the kind of class-A security usually reserved for the military, powerful corporations, and government facilities, but after 8.34 beats she had it done. There was a soft beep, and the lights glowed green. She replaced the keyplate, put away her gear, and drew her railgun.

"Ready?"

"Go for it."

She tapped the "open" key, and the trapdoor slid neatly into the lip, revealing an angled passage.

"I see," Ryland said. "They pull the crates over the opening from beneath, then close the trapdoor. Since they're not heavy, they're easily pushed away if people want to leave. And since the crates are empty, passerby wouldn't be likely to mess around with them."

They descended through the open door. The octagonal passage was reminiscent of ones Lyon had seen in No Man's Mines under the surface and was clearly of Coralian construction. Lights strobed along the walls, perhaps in response to the flow of Photon energy through the tunnel's systems. The vibrations were even stronger here; they were clearly on the right track.

Cautiously, Lyon in the lead just as they'd done while exploring the forest, they descended the tunnel, which continued for about thirty feet before it opened into a square room. It might have been intended as a kind of sentry room, but appeared to be unmanned. Its only feature of note appeared to be a small computer terminal in one corner, but as Lyon looked at it her vision seemed to ripple, as if the light was being distorted by a heat haze. Since there was certainly no heat source, she initiated a diagnostic on her vision, a spark of worry beginning to mount within her.

"Lyon, look out!"

A bolt of lightning, obviously conjured by Ryland's Zonde technique, struck into the middle of the hazy area and arced across its surface. The haze flickered, just slightly, but enough for Lyon to recognize that it was not a _field_ of shifting air, but that it had a definite humanoid outline, though taller and broader than even the burliest RAcast. Internally Lyon cancelled the diagnostic and adjusted her perspective to track the nearly invisible shape, while externally she fired three shots from her railgun into it. Ryland shifted tactics and flung a stinging spray of cold into the enemy, but his Gibarta failed to freeze it. The enemy leapt at Lyon, who shot it again as it jumped, and knocked her against the far wall. She kept her grip on her gun, though, and even as it turned to Ryland she pumped three more shots into it. The haze faded, revealing a bulky white robot with green trim. Sparking from several places where her railgun blasts had pierced its armor, it keeled over to one side. A dull _whump_ signaled the detonation of its internal circuitry, a typical measure in combat robots to keep defeated units from being analyzed by the enemy.

"What was _that_?" Lyon exclaimed.

"Photon camouflage. I've heard about it, but never seen it before in the field. _Pioneer 1_'s Lab apparently developed it."

"This is from _Pioneer 1_? What's it doing in the Residential Area? So far the only time we've encountered robot armies is down in the mines."

"No, I think it's one of ours. The details were sent back to us on _Pioneer 2_, and adapted to some of our Sinow-type security robots. The military hasn't deployed them on Ragol yet, though, because they're afraid of the D-factor infection that's sent the _Pioneer 1_ robots haywire."

"Until now."

"Until now," Ryland agreed. "This all but confirms it, though. There almost has to be military involvement if a Sinow Berril is being used."

"So why didn't it signal an alarm? Why aren't doors sealing shut and sirens blazing?"

"I don't know."

He stepped to the computer and began to access it. Apparently there weren't any security protocols in place, since he was able to find the data he sought.

"Here we go. Outpost maintenance data. Well, this explains the vibrations, at least."

"Oh?"

"The tunnel isn't stable--well, more accurately, the ground above it isn't stable. Basically, they're constantly using power to hold the area above it from turning into a giant sinkhole which might damage the structure and would definitely be noticeable to any hunters operating near the west side of the Central Dome."

"Which is a fair number, since that's where the emergency access teleporter is."

"Uh-huh."

"If there's maintenance data there, can you get a map?"

He tapped a couple more spots on the terminal and a window opened amidst the scroll of green text.

"Hunh. That's odd."

Odd, Lyon decided, barely scratched the surface. The entire facility consisted of the tunnel they'd entered through, the room they were in, and a second tunnel that slanted back up out the far side.

"I don't get it. What's going on here? There's no experiment chambers, no production factories, nothing to keep hidden."

"I don't think this _is_ a facility the way we think of it. I think it's a passage."

"A passage to where?"

"Here." He shifted the map slightly.

"The Central Dome? But that's crazy. Not only is there nothing _in_ there, but sooner or later one of those magma vents will open and trash the tunnel."

"Not quite the Central Dome," Ryland corrected. "This display is precise. Look more closely."

Lyon wondered if it would have been too much trouble to just _tell_ her, but she looked again and saw what he meant.

"A tower," she said. "One of the auxiliary towers that surround the dome."

"Right. They've been inaccessible since they were accessed through the main Dome and both the physical doors and any warp platform to reach them were decimated. In people's minds they were written off as irrelevant, presumed destroyed as a part of the whole. I've never even seen a Guild Quest listing concerning one."

"Neither have I."

"But that doesn't mean that they actually _are_ destroyed, or that there isn't something valuable inside one."

"Okay, but why all this?" She waved a hand to encompass the room and the facility beyond. "Surely it would have been easier and cheaper to just break in above the surface on ground level if they wanted to get in?"

"If this is military, then the odds are they don't have authorization to be running their own exploration op at all. Procedure would be to send hunters first into any hazardous environment and Lab or military follow-up teams later. If they know what they're looking for, maybe they don't want the Administration to know for fear they'll steal it."

"Or maybe they're just so hardwired to do everything covertly that they can't tie their shoes without a major coverup and three levels of plausible deniability," Lyon snapped.

"I sometimes wonder if that might not be the truth," said Ryland. "In any case, shall we move on and see what it is that they're protecting?"

Lyon took the hint and led the way up the second passage. It was much longer than the first and felt almost claustrophobic, as if she could sense the weight of the earth pressing in on all sides. It ended by sloping up to another trapdoor, but this one was already greenlit. She opened it, and the two hunters stepped up into the auxiliary tower.

"This place is a mess," Lyon remarked succinctly. The basic structure was intact, excepting a jagged crack down one wall, but the interior was a ruin. What had been a kind of open-air workroom two stories high was full of destroyed computer parts, wrecked terminals, and bits and pieces of industrial robots, probably the ones the military had used to construct the passage. With them it would have taken a couple of days to finish the job instead of weeks. A broad, sloping ramp led up the side of the windowless wall to the upper floor.

Then Lyon caught sight of the first uniformed corpse. She snapped her gun up, scanning the room for the sight of any threat.

Nothing. Not even a camouflage shimmer.

"It looks like he was burned to death," Ryland said, examining the body. "We'd need a medical opinion to say if it was from a fire technique or something natural, though."

The next body wasn't human, but a Type: W military android. Lyon had met several and liked none of them; they were tasked killing machines as much as they were people, a perfect example of what could go wrong in android design. But this one was inert, dead in every way that counted, and she couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy. He'd been burnt, too, the damage so intense that it had melted good chunks of his carapace and no doubt the AI core beneath.

They found a second human body, this one with a lieutenant's bar on his collar. He didn't show any signs of violence at all.

"Megid," Ryland deduced. The dark Photon technique simply cancelled out the life-sustaining Photon in the target; the body just...stopped.

"What happened here? Was it an enemy Force that ambushed these soldiers?"

"A rival faction? Maybe."

"There's another one over there." Lyon nodded towards the ramp. Another soldier's corpse was sprawled there, half-hidden by the guardrail.

"Frost damage," Ryland decided when they reached it. "It looks like your guess of an enemy Force, or more than one, was right. I can't think of anything else that could do this many different types of damage. What I don't understand is how someone could have found out about this mission. Unless it was from Dr. Carstairs's data and it's the murderers of these military personnel running the coverup? But that doesn't make sense, because the _military_ surely knows that they came here, and no amount of coverup would conceal their internal knowledge."

Lyon had to agree that it didn't add up the way things seemed to be happening. Somewhere they had either misinterpreted something or just didn't have enough data.

The pencil-thin red line that stabbed down from above gave only a split second's warning. Threat-response algorithms, prioritized because of their location in the field and what they'd discovered, gave Lyon an amazing reaction time, and she grabbed a fistful of Ryland's robes and pulled him away.

"Move it!" she shouted, half-running, half-diving aside with the Force in tow. She hit the ground, heard the explosion and felt the heat wash over her, but she'd been outside the damage range of the Rafoie blast. "Ryland! You okay?"

"Yes; what _was_ that?"

She rolled onto her back for a better look.

"Coming again! _Move!_"

They did, scrambling to their feet and dashing in separate directions through the rubble. The red line--a targeting sight, Lyon realized--tracked towards Ryland, but the Force was faster than he looked, even in his ornate robes. He hurdled the wreckage of a computer workstation, then veered sharply right and the second Rafoie went off behind him.

With the hazard's attention on Ryland, Lyon got a chance to see what it was they were facing. Descending the ramp from the upper level was a large black machine, easily big enough to be a vehicle but probably some kind of robot. Lyon fired at it, but her shots impacted harmlessly against the massive oval armor plate on its facing side, one of four that made the thing all but impregnable.

_What is that, some kind of tank? It'd take field-grade artillery to scratch that armor!_ Lyon thought helplessly.

The machine slid inexorably down the ramp and into the lower room. Equipped as it was with hover-flight capabilities, the damage and obstacles did not hinder it. Lyon continued to fire helplessly while Ryland tried his Zonde technique with equal fruitlessness. It did not counter with further devastating Rafoies, though, but tried a new technique. It suddenly stopped and its shield-plates detached from the main body, extending outwards and whirling around it in a rapid arc. Pulsing blue auras swelled around the guards, and Lyon wasn't fast enough to elude one as the sudden move had taken her by surprise. Cold washed over her, blasting her structure, but worse yet she was sheathed in a thin ice prison that held her helpless. The effect was temporary, she knew, but how much more damage would she take before she broke out?

Suddenly the ice crumbled in a shimmer of light and she flung herself back just in time to avoid the next orbiting guard.

"Thanks!" she called to Ryland, who'd freed her with an Anti technique. _Useful, teaming with a Force!_

"Any time." He hurled another Zonde, which sought out the nearest guard with no effect at all.

"Ryland! Not the shields--hit the body!" Lyon was suddenly inspired, and suited her actions to her words. Timing the orbiting guards, she fired between them and was satisfied to see her shots blast gouges in the exposed gray metal where the guard-plates had been mounted.

"Right!"

Ryland switched from Zonde, which would automatically be attracted to the nearest shield, to Gizonde, sending a chained bolt of lightning leaping from target to target and striking the war machine's main body on the way.

"That's it! Keep it up!"

They hammered at the killing machine with everything they had for more than a minute, when it suddenly pulled its shields in. Once more the tracking beam swept out and the hunters scrambled away, barely dodging the attack. A second, then a third blast nearly finished things, until it stopped again. This time Lyon anticipated the shields and it was a good thing she did, because the aura they projected wasn't blue but a deep violet, the color of dark-attributed Photon. _That explains the soldier killed by Megid,_ she thought. _Pick your element; this thing has it._

The fact that the machine had to stop moving during its shield attack, though, was a fatal design flaw, as was the touch-only effect of the guards' auras. It was a brutally effective way to clear out a close-range attack but ineffective against ranged attackers who used a bit of care. Perhaps with a human, android, or AI operator controlling it the machine could have used its immense power more efficiently, but on its own it seemed to just cycle through attacks.

It didn't survive the cycle. Lyon and Ryland reduced its vulnerable core section to scrap.

"What _was_ that?" Ryland asked, panting for breath.

"Search me; some kind of cutting-edge combat mech, I'd say."

"Obviously operating in seek-and-destroy mode. That's almost certainly what killed the military team. And it's too big to have fit through the tunnel, so they didn't bring it with them."

"So you think the military was after this, whatever it was?"

Ryland nodded.

"Presumably a breakthrough made by _Pioneer 1_. We can assume in their various research operations the military got wind of its existence, then came here to attempt to retrieve both the unit itself and more importantly the design data. They always complain about being undergunned and this certainly would have changed that. Only when they broke through, either they triggered some security protocol that made it attack or else it was subject to D-Factor infection. I doubt they knew what hit them."

"So the operation failed, but they covered it up anyway?"

"They had to. First off, they'd certainly want to launch some kind of follow-up eventually. Maybe they did and are even now trying to come up with a plan to secure the machine. Secondly, they'd certainly want to cover up the fact that they'd been involved in an illegal operation." He rubbed his chin. "Yes, I suspect they're trying to come up with a Plan B. If they'd just given up they'd have dismantled the tunnel to keep their activities secret."

"Only we've pretty much trashed their plans."

Ryland nodded.

"We'll have to report this to the Administration."

"The sooner the better," Lyon agreed. "I don't fancy being next on the list of things to be covered up."

"You'll get no argument from me. But there's one other little detail that we need to clean up first."


	8. Chapter 8

"What is this?" Edwin Scolos asked. "Our business is finished." He blinked, eyes heavy with sleep, at Ryland's face, then glanced over at Lyon. "Who is that?"

"May we come in? I don't think that you want to be discussing private matters out in the hall."

He looked at them quizzically.

"I suppose so." He stepped aside and showed them into his residence unit. "Please, sit down." Scolos sat in a large pale blue gel-chair, while the hunters took the regulation sofa on the far side of the room. "Oh, can I offer you something?"

Ryland shook his head.

"No, thank you. This is a business call, not a social one--and I suppose at this hour it's rude enough for us just to be here without expecting food service. Indeed, you're a lot more courteous than I'd be if I'd just stepped out of bed." His eyes flicked up and down the length of Scolos's body, taking in the man's rumpled pajamas.

"Well, yes, but you were pretty insistent at the door, so that means it's important, right?" He tried a smile and almost succeeded despite the sleepiness. "The Lab is always calling emergency rollouts for some urgent business or another, or when an experiment hits the critical stages. I suppose only the military or a med-center gets it worse."

The words were coming more easily to him, and he no longer seemed like he had to suppress a yawn with every breath. That was good. They didn't need him half-asleep.

"So what's this about? Is it some hunter job you need my help with?"

"Yes. Actually, it's about yours."

"But that was finished yesterday. You delivered the data module and I paid you. There's nothing left--indeed, I'm quite happy with your work. I'm sure that thanks to you, Dr. Carstairs's name will be vindicated as the greatest mind in xenobiology."

"That's a very laudable goal," Ryland agreed. "I think it would be even better accomplished if the true facts about his death came out."

"What do you mean? The story has been all over InfoNet." He frowned, then added, "I know the Lab has been using pressure to downplay the facts--rivalry and murder between scientists does look bad, after all--but the details haven't been kicked under the rug."

"No," Lyon corrected him, "the cover-up concocted by the military has been all over InfoNet. The details remain nearly unknown."

She fixed Scolos with an intense gaze that her inorganic-styled eyes made seem even more intimidating. He looked away from her to Ryland.

"What is she talking about? Was the military behind Dr. Guls?"

"No, they were behind you. You're the murderer."

Scolos stared at him, apparently bewildered.

"You can't be serious! M-me?" He seemed to rally, switching emotional gears. "I won't listen to these insults! Get out of here right now!"

Ryland shook his head sadly.

"I hate it when they try to lie their way out of it." He adjusted his glasses as if trying to get a better look at Scolos. "Shall I explain?"

"Give it a shot," said Lyon.

"The instant we learned that a cover-up was in play to conceal Dr. Carstairs's data, we ruled out the jealous-rival scenario. Coincidences do happen, but a man being murdered for totally unrelated reasons _just_ as his research is being suppressed? _And_ his supposed killer happens to be the only one able to easily analyze the data being concealed? No one is credulous enough to believe that. Could Dr. Guls be the actual killer but working with a different agenda than the cover story proposes? Again, no; he was the patsy. Only a fanatic would keep quiet and be executed rather than trade information for freedom, and he didn't fit the bill. You, on the other hand, were definitely part of the cover-up, which made you a prime suspect. More likely than not, when Dr. Carstairs first discovered the anomalous migration data and what it meant, he discussed it with you, his assistant, to prepare a report to his superiors. You tipped off your paymasters, and the plan went into effect.

"Now, none of that by itself made you a killer. At that stage, you could easily have just been a spy. Then, however, we learned _who_ was behind the cover-up: the military. That changed things."

"I won't stand for these insults! Get out now or I'll call security!"

Ryland chuckled.

"Go ahead; it'll save us the grunt work of arresting you. As I was saying, you were obviously guilty because of how the crime had been made to appear: a Lab location, Lab chemicals used in the explosion, and so on. You know what kind of security Chief Milarose maintains in the Lab areas. A military black-ops team simply couldn't gain the kind of free access to the facilities needed to stage the crime. No, they used their man on the inside, since after all it was supposed to look like a Lab insider's crime. That, of course, was you. Now, I'm sure a full investigation will reveal whether you're an actual soldier placed undercover as a spy in advance or if you were recruited via bribery or blackmail, but until then--"

Ryland didn't get to finish the thought. Scolos turned and bolted for the res-unit's door. Since the hunters were across the room from it, they had no chance to block his path.

Just as they'd planned.

Lyon tapped her PDL.

"He's running; we'll pursue, but be ready to take him," she spoke into it.

"So convenient, isn't it, that flight is evidence of guilt?" Ryland quipped.

"Unfortunately, flight involves having to catch the suspect again," Lyon groused, already on her feet.

They rushed through the living area and the foyer, only to find the door locked. It took less than .2 beats to decode and open, since there was only so much one could do with a residence door from the outside, but even so it gave Scolos a head start. He was almost at the end of the corridor to the elevator, but the indicator showed that it was in use and on the way up to this level.

"It's too late," Lyon shouted. "That'll be the police, on their way to bring you in."

Scolos looked back at her, then up at the elevator, and his courage broke again. He bolted to his left, through the door that led out to the balcony walk that ran around the building and connected it to others.

"Is it the milipol?" Ryland asked.

"Search me. Come on!"

They'd gained some time while Scolos was at the elevator, so the hunters redoubled their efforts. He'd taken a turn off the balcony to a walkway, a kind of flying bridge that linked to a parking garage.

"Where's he running to, anyway?" Lyon wondered out loud. "This is a spaceship; there's nowhere to go."

"Military-controlled areas, maybe? If he gets in safe with his bosses maybe he figures the jurisdictional issues will get hacked out in a way that doesn't end in his execution for murder."

Lyon didn't know if Scolos intended to try to get away in a vehicle or just thought the garage offered a better escape route. She never got the chance to learn, because two aerocars sporting the flashing red and blue lights of milipol cruisers descended to hover over the walkway, searchlights pinning him in their beams.

"Edwin Scolos! This is the police! Give yourself up and surrender into custody!" blared over one cruiser's loudspeakers.

"There's nowhere left to run, Scolos," Lyon called.

He looked back at them, eyes wide and staring, his face looking almost ghostly in the spotlights. Scolos looked up at the aerocars, then back to the hunters.

"Oh, yes there is!" In one convulsive movement, he wrenched himself over the walkway's four-foot-high railing and let himself drop.

They were nineteen levels above the city base.

Inspector Laleham joined them on the walkway three beats later.

"If it matters, the cruisers confirmed impact," he told them. "He fell the whole way; he was TBR." Terminal Beyond Recovery, meaning too much brain damage for him to be revived with a Moon Atomizer, a Force's Reverser technique, or medical center equipment, all of which could infallibly restart a technically deceased body so long as the brain was intact.

"Blast it!" Ryland cursed mildly. "I wanted to take him alive so he could tell us who ordered the killing, which part of the military was behind the dome tower project."

Laleham frowned sourly.

"CoC'd probably just bury my report anyway," he admitted, referring to the military chain of command the police reported to. "If this was all sanctioned then they'd whitewash it until it sparkled, and if it was a rogue op they'd take steps in-house to keep from losing face. At least this way the guy who did the hands-on work got what was coming to him. I wonder what made him jump, though?"

"Inside, Ryland, you said that only a fanatic would play out Guls's role if he were guilty. Do you think that Scolos--?"

"Was a man with a cause? Maybe. There's a lot of factions interested in Ragol, and loyalty can go a long way. Or maybe he just got scared and desperate. He may have been a spy and murderer, but he was still a lab rat, not a field agent. Maybe, thrown into a fight situation, he just snapped."

"We'll probably never know."

"You got enough, though, to release Dr. Guls, didn't you?"

Laleham nodded.

"Oh, yeah, no question. As soon as I get back to headquarters I'll be springing him."

There was a hissing sound from somewhere in the city, and a streak of light rose upwards to burst into a shower of bright gold sparks. Other fireworks began to go up, crackling red, green, and blue.

"000 beats," Lyon reported. "Happy New Year."

"Well, we saw through a cover-up, unearthed a clandestine plot, brought down a killer, and freed an innocent man. Maybe things are looking up."

"Maybe so. Sounds like you two make a pretty good team, at any rate."

Lyon and Ryland shared a glance. The Force rubbed the back of his neck.

"We do, at that. Want to talk about it over a cup of coffee, Lyon?"

"I'm an android, Ryland. I don't drink coffee."

"All right, so I'll buy."

They walked off towards where Ryland had parked his aerocar, while fireworks heralded the new beginning above.

~X X X~

Irene Seda, secretary to Principal Tyrell, walked briskly into the conference room.

"I know that you're all busy people, but I'll be brief. In regard to the matter of the message signal coming from the newly discovered facility on Gal De Val Island, the Council has made its decision. The initial exploration of the target areas shall continue to be carried out by hunters certified as A-rank or above by the Hunter's Guild, in accordance with current policy. Responsibility for selecting and supervising the hunter teams shall be the sole province of the Lab."

Commander Valgarde slammed his fist on the table.

"This is intolerable! That message originated with the Deputy Commander of _Pioneer 1_'s military, Heathcliff Flowen! It is clearly an internal military matter."

"The Council took that factor into consideration," Irene said. "However, the decision was made."

Natasha Milarose smiled thinly at him from across the table.

"No doubt the details of the army's most recent surface expedition had a certain influence, Valgarde? You know, the one where your entire advance team was slaughtered by the Epsilon-class mech you were trying to hijack? Or in which your spy started murdering members of my staff to cover up your own incompetence?"

"There's no proof of any of that!"

"Of the murder, no, but plenty of the military's unsanctioned surface operation. I had a hunter go down and clean up after the late Dr. Carstairs, and she and a friend all but tripped over your little building project. A complete report was made." She smiled again, catlike. "Did I forget to copy you when I passed it on to the Administration? How careless of me."

She rose from her seat.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a major operation to plan."

Natasha strode coolly from the room, followed by Irene. Valgarde turned to the final person at the table.

"Damn it, Leo, why didn't you say something?"

Leo Grahart, commader of the 32nd Galactic Mobile Infantry Squadron, WORKS, was impassive behind the metal mask that covered half his face.

"I saw that report," he noted. "You were finished the minute it hit Tyrell's desk."

"_You_ saw it?"

Grahart shrugged.

"I have my sources. It's curious, though. The hunter found your installation by analyzing the Rappy migration data that you were trying to conceal. I'm assuming that the late Dr. Carstairs was murdered to keep him from reporting on that data to anyone, correct?"

Sensing a trap, Valgarde kept his reply hypothetical.

"If you assume that, then what piques your interest?"

"Well, Natasha basically threw a hunter on top of that data, and events proceeded from there. So how did she know? How did Chief Milarose know that Dr. Carstairs's data would expose you?"

Valgarde twitched.

"What are you driving at, Leo?"

"Perhaps nothing. Only, just out of curiosity, how exactly did your people get their hands on _Pioneer 1_ data indicating that they were using that tower for development of the Epsilon battle machine?"

"One of our agents stole it. It was part of a data cache a hunter team had retrieved from a bio-development lab in No Man's Mines."

"A hunter team working for whom?"

"They'd been sent to locate the facility and retrieve any significant data by the Lab, which was why we wanted to get a look...at..." His voice trailed away as it sank in.

"That," Grahart concluded, "is pretty much what I suspected."


End file.
